


the unlucky ones

by morallygreydesi



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bluesey is alluded to, Gen, no real spoilers, set some time after blue lily lily blue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 04:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morallygreydesi/pseuds/morallygreydesi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue feels like a great betrayal has occurred. Ronan hates June. Noah has gone hunting. Adam is out for a drive. Gansey sits in his idling Camaro. The Universe is out, playing cruel tricks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the unlucky ones

Blue feels like a great betrayal has occurred. The flashing orange light, the monotone beeping, the high-pitched noise that pierces through her eardrums and plays a solo on her skull – they’re all mechanical manifestations of a science that is yet to be believed. It irritates her skin to watch non-believers trivialize and reiterate facts that anybody from her circle could confirm. Her fingers tremble as they hug her elbows close to her body, watching them break down and attempt to make constants out of variables.

She feels like she is once again Gansey’s fumbling Jane, watching him with sharp eyes as he fiddles with his EMF reader, mapping ley lines that are unworthy to be touched by hands that touch that instrument.

Blue Sargent had always been skeptical of the skeptics.

Only today, it is a different machine, a different flashing light, a different recording. Today is when something as simple as a cardiogram shows only one truth; an irreversible, universal truth that is the same in every language (religious, scientific, astrological, celestial, latin, Gansey-esque, or Lynch-typical).

The Magician is dead.

 

* * *

 

Ronan fucking hates June. For someone who ought to love the end of the school year, the smell of sticky heat teasing under a muscle T, the sun shining warm over his scalp and down the ridges of his inked skin, the heat of burning tires on a highway that only shows glimmering mirages, beckoning him to step on an accelerator – he really fucking hates June. And he loathes Wednesdays.

It is irony of the cruelest, sweetest sort that this son of Cabeswater must find commonality in his losses.

Once upon a time on a Wednesday, in the first week of a June-worthy April, a Dick Gansey lay collapsed in the grass and died, while somewhere far away, another ghost of a boy lost a fight after having his own skateboard smashed into his face.

Another time, on a Wednesday, in the third week of June, a Greywaren – so lethally capable of conjuring nightmares that he barred his sons from entering his home – was beaten to death with nothing but a tire iron.

Today, a Wednesday in the second week of June, a Magician – one who survived a sacrifice, magical caves, scrying, and an absolutely toxic human life – found himself wrapping his car around a tree on the side of the highway.

The smell of burnt wood and warm Coca-Cola fills his lungs. Behind him, the “CLOSED” sign on Nino’s door taps a rhythm from being tossed around in the summer breeze. He can hear stray dogs barking and whining somewhere in the distance – far enough that he doesn’t worry about being attacked, and close enough that he can empathize with the animalistic need to rip something to shreds. He wishes he had canines long enough to reach down and claw at his own chest. For now, his fingers suffice, curled tightly through the front of his t-shirt. He pretends that the fabric underneath his hands isn’t crusted with dried blood.

He finds himself missing Kavinsky a little bit. If he’d been here, all uncouth remarks aside, Ronan could’ve slid a forgetful potion down his throat and wrapped his arms around the gear stick of a car.

He finds himself missing Parrish, more than a little bit. If he’d been here…well.

It’s no surprise that the dead always made him feel more alive.

 

Perhaps he’s grown too used to Gansey’s “no coincidences” rule, or he’s just too used to watching this town, this line, this world giving him things he subconsciously asks for. Perhaps that is why he’s not the least bit alarmed when he watches a Prius slow down in front of him. The driver is a girl he, sort of, not really, recognizes until he does.

“Kavinsky’s bitch,” he calls out, and that’s as friendly as he can get. She raises her chin in acknowledgement. Both of them remember a car she almost burned in, pretending everything was still as simple as that.

“Sargent’s boy toy,” she responds, and then adds, “One of.” 

He’s had many identifiers thrown at him from many acquaintances. This one, from this girl, surprises him a little. It takes him a few moments to realize that, of course, she probably attends Blue’s school. Of course, she knows the eccentric psychic’s daughter. And, of course, she knows their group. He feels an inappropriate sense of pride at this. They’d corrupted Blue’s already corrupted reputation.

He’d never say this to her but they’d made an Aglionby girl out of her. Maybe he _should_ say this to her.

“You look disturbingly disturbed. Even for your aesthetic,” she comments, car idling. Driving hybrids was a hypocrite’s work.

“What do you want?” he asks. He isn’t in the mood for chitchat with old, old, old people he knows.

“To enjoy watching you like this.”

“Kavinsky had better barbs. Are you trying to make up for losing _your_ boy toy? You’re doing a shitty job.”

 _Mediocre, sub par, middling, unexceptional,_ Gansey would’ve said if he’d ever had the nerve to talk to a girl like that. He was, sometimes, the most pointless thesaurus.

She – he doesn’t know what her name is and he doesn’t give half a fuck – rolls her eyes. There’s something about the expression that suggests that she’s long forgotten the delinquent she’d once worn as body glitter to boost her social status. He was a means to an end she’s achieved. Ronan makes a mental note to someday, someday, ask Blue about her. Unfortunately, he knows that the moment she leaves, his curiosity will evaporate.

Ronan wonders how it’s possible to be wedged knee deep in a pool of boys that let themselves be played by girls. Declan, Gansey, Czerny, Parrish – and, apparently, even Kavinsky.

“Screw you,” she says, putting her hands back on the wheel, pulling the car out of neutral.

“Not in a million years.”

She flips him off as she rips out of the parking lot, a pathetic attempt at dramatic affect. He wishes he could snort at it, but he’s currently holding back all attempts at wordless displays of emotion. He doesn’t quite trust that a chuckle, a laugh, or a howl wouldn’t quickly dissolve into an all-encompassing sob.

He closes his eyes and leans all the way back on the walkway, weight resting on his elbows, knees leaning against his BMW license plate. The gravel digs into his exposed skin, but it feels like a delicious pain. Warm wind blows across his face again, bringing with it another whiff of mystery and morbidity. 

Ronan suddenly thinks that summer is the worst season to die in. It’s the worst season to mourn in, too. Ice teas and tank tops weren’t made for bones that long to curl up into oblivion. He can feel his own skin stretch painfully across his ligaments, a rubber band that’s lost all it’s traction, unable to hold its contents in place. He could fall into a million pieces onto the sidewalk, right then.

He can feel the heat of another pair of headlights, and the telltale squeal of tires that can only come from an inexperienced driver.

“You found me,” he whispers.

There is the sound of the ignition being turned off, a door being opened and closed, and then the nauseating scent of lavender and sterilized hospital walls. Bile bubbles somewhere in his chest, threatening to creep up his throat. He breathes deeply, twice, in through the nose and out through the mouth. The only thing worse than having a trigger to cry would be having a trigger to throw up.

“You’re not difficult to find when you want to be found,” Blue responds, sitting down next to him.

“Who said I want to be found?”

“Everybody who is lost wants to be found.”

He doesn’t deny it. He simply inhales and exhales again, listening to her shuffle around. He can tell she’s uncomfortable in his presence, but it’s not him that’s making her uncomfortable.

Ronan Lynch and Blue Sargent had faced all of four losses in their lives. They’d both mourned a friend they hadn’t known was dead. They’d both had a parent become a slave to Cabeswater. They’d both lost a parent figure. And now, they’d both lost Parrish. The Greywaren had just made a habit of knowing that the real world would always be a bleak place in comparison to a mind where desires ran rampant.

“Where’s Gansey?” he asks, giving her something to talk about, letting her fill the silence that she’s not enjoying.

“At the hospital.”

It sounded just like Gansey to fill in paper work, hash out details, make a list of things to do for the funeral – probably even call Parrish’s parents – to avoid confronting that they’d all monumentally failed in keeping themselves intact.

“And Noah?”

There’s no answer to this question, and that alone causes him to crack open one eye. He finally looks at her and she looks like something Chainsaw had scavenged from the rubbish bin and ripped apart. Her hair is disheveled, sticking up in different directions. Her face looks pale and splotchy, like she’s already had a chance to cry once. Her holey dress looks like it’s become more threadbare in the past few hours. She looks like a pale imitation of something that already felt like a pale imitation. A thousand shades of Blue, all watered down to this sad hue. She blinked and turned, catching his eye.

“Where’s Noah?” he repeats.

“Hunting.”

Ronan needs no explanation for that. In fact, he vaguely remembers Noah disappearing, his last words a mere whisper of _I’ll be back._ He’d had bigger things to worry about in that moment. He’s almost ashamed to admit that he hasn’t given Noah much thought since then.

Almost.

He doesn’t need to be told _what_ – or rather, whom – Noah is hunting. He can’t help but wonder how they’re all entwined in the same route fate had paved. Gansey is destined to forever hunt for Parrish by drowning in his research, never scratching the surface. Blue is destined to forever hunt for Parrish by tasting her memories, never finding him. Noah is destined to forever hunt for Parrish in the place where all dead people go, perhaps never returning himself. And Ronan? Ronan is destined to forever hunt for Parrish in his dreams, never being able to find a real enough version to bring back with him.

They were all lost causes now. It was a price that came with searching for Adam Parrish. Perhaps that is why Parrish, himself, had been the one most lost.

“It doesn’t feel like it should be a summer night,” she whispers, voicing the same thoughts he’d been having right before she arrived.

“What should it be?”

“A winter morning,” she muses. He gives her a look that she interprets quite easily.

There’s only one place where that could be possible right now.

* * *

Gansey’s entire body is shaking and it has little to do with the idling Camaro he sits in. The smell of gasoline is stronger than ever, creeping through his innards, a harsh reminder that there is no more Adam to help him figure out this car. The wind blows dust through the open window, making him cough. He coughs until his lungs can’t take it anymore and he’s doubled over the steering wheel, losing breath.

In the distance, he can see the silhouette of a broken woman through pale, cheap curtains. Adam’s mother is falling to pieces inside the double wide, losing her son for the second time in a span too short. Gansey hasn’t yet called Adam’s father, but he thinks he won’t have to. He’ll come home, see his wife, and figure it all out himself.

Theoretically, he knows he should get out. Even if Robert Parrish knows that the consequences of harming a Dick Gansey are too large, he might just lash out at him for bringing this news. He could be home any minute. He could already be in, for all Gansey knows.

But right now, he doesn’t really give a damn. He kind of wishes someone would beat this pain out of him. He wishes he were dead instead.

That realization causes him to smash his fist against the vinyl seats. Once. Twice. Thrice. When there is no resistance to shatter his frustration against, he starts hitting the dashboard. He moves onto the steering wheel too, hitting it over and over again. And with every blow, a cry slips out of his lips. Before he knows it, he’s leaning against the wheel, sobbing harder than ever. Dick Gansey III is an old man in a teenager’s body. But right now, he feels more like a child than ever.

_It should’ve been me. I did this. It’s my fault._

He can still here his own words in his head. The same fight they’d always had, only this time Gansey’s weapons had delivered lethal damage. He doesn’t even _really_ remember the exact words, but he’d said something to anger Adam, as he always did, and Adam’s pride had led him out the door, like it always did.

_You killed him. He’d have never been out there if you hadn’t driven him out._

“Oh god,” he gasps, trying to compose himself. It’s never been a difficult process to push it all down and put on that charming smile people rely on. It’s the smile he’s always had to pull up so that all his friends and family had something to lean against. His sister had once joked that if something broke Gansey, then they were all screwed.

Now, he doesn’t think he can pull himself together, let alone compose a mask to hide the scratches. He’s got no expensive rug to sweep this mess under.

His fingers rest on his chest, trying to breathe, but he can’t. He can only cry. He wonders if this is what dying feels like, but he knows what it feels like and he’d take that gladly.

He suddenly wishes Blue were here to hold him. Hold him, hug him, kiss him. Her out-of-reach touches seem less like an inconceivable dream now. Now they feel like something he needs; a sting of a hornet on his lips. Anything to just let him die, die, die.

But if loss is anything like what he feels right now, then he can never do that to his family. To Ronan. To Blue.

He wishes he had Glendower, he thinks, sniffling and wrestling the gearshift from neutral to first. For so long, he hadn’t given a damn about the favor. The favor was for those in his search party who needed it. The one who needed it most was dead now. He sobs again, not bothering to wipe his tears.

After meeting Blue, he’d known that his favor would be to lift the curse – granted that they each got one favor, instead of just one overall. He couldn’t ask for a favor as selfish as that if the entire group only got one.

But now, it doesn’t matter how many favors there were or who got them.

He has to find Glendower. He has to find him and ask for Adam back.

* * *

It’s a winter morning, just as Blue had asked for. The chill is settling low in her belly, wind fluttering through the slashes in her dress. She should’ve considered the lack of appropriate clothing for this outing, but she doesn’t think it’ll matter. If it gets unbearable then she’ll at least know that there are other feelings that can kill her. Feelings worse than this one.

It had taken them some time to get to Cabeswater, mostly because of Ronan, who’d decided to pick a surprisingly even toned argument with her before they’d left Nino’s. Most of it had involved calling her Ford disgusting names, combined with calling her driving skills even worse names. Initially, she’d assumed he was trying to pick a fight to relieve some tension.

So, naturally, she’d fought back because she was a good friend, and because she was _Blue._ But then she’d noticed his tense stance, the terror swirling deep inside his dark eyes, the way he used the same barbs over and over again (“At least my car has air bags” “You’d be a hazard on an open road in broad daylight” “That Ford could fall apart if I kissed its bonnet”) it had finally occurred to her that Ronan wasn’t trying to pick a fight at all. It had more to do with a newfound fear that another person would crash headfirst into their early end.

After some mumbling and grumbling, she’d driven his power steering and trusty air bagged BMW to the clearing, him slowly following in her family’s Ford. He never honked. He never complained. He never overtook. Then they’d taken ages to hike because it was taking them effort to keep breathing, let alone walking through wilderness. And once they had found the forest, and they’d asked for the change in time and weather, they’d looked for a place to sit where they could sit for a long, long time without dying of hypothermia.

Now, Ronan looked worse than he had before, and she wonders if it’s the daylight and the unsaturated air, or if it’s being in a place where he has the luxury to fall apart and feel like he’s doing it in Adam’s lap. The earlier black splotches on his shirt are now stark, dark maroon blood. She can see them all over his chest, and some streaks on his jeans and biceps. If she closes her eyes, she can picture the exact angle Ronan had held him in, as Adam had died.

She finds herself wondering if Gansey’s managed to get the message to the Parrishes. They might come to the funeral. What a world this was, where people like Robert Parrish could still say goodbye to their sons, but sons like Adam didn’t get to live.

“This is going to be us again in a few months, isn’t it?” he whispers. His breath makes smoke. She frowns a bit.

“What do you mean?”

“Gansey.”

She inhales sharply, fresh, stinging air whistling down her windpipe. The name is a sudden reminder that yes, yes, in a few months they’d lose him too. She curls herself tighter. She’d always known he’d die, but the idea of losing him now is a poking at a fresh wound.

“How did you know?”

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. You say you make death lists for people who die within twelve months. _And_ , you see Gansey’s spirit when you’ve never seen a spirit before, on St. Mark’s Eve, and ask his name as if you’re collecting names for something. Besides,” he adds, smiling dangerously. “The way you look at him is less like a lovesick puppy and more like a widow.”

“So, then you know that we were – when Glendower – we were going to ask to save him.”

“I know you were,” he whispers.

She hears the words unspoken.

“And you weren’t?” she asks, a slight edge to her voice.

“No,” he says, answering with equal edge. “I was going to ask for Parrish’s.”

She feels dizzy, and her knees feel numb. Blue thinks she’s going to faint.

“You knew Adam was going to die?”

“I knew _someone_ was going to die.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he says, taking a few deep breaths. “It means that’s what I saw when I was in that tree. I saw myself at a funeral. I saw _us_ at a funeral. You and me. I figured if both of us were there, then it had to be someone we knew. And then Noah’s funeral happened. So, I thought we were done.”

She leans back into the rock she’s sitting against, wishing the edge digging into her would slice her in half. He continues talking. She wonders if talking is all he can do stop himself from breaking down, or stewing in his own misery. She wonders if he’s doing that thing where he’s willing to say things nobody else would.

“And then Persephone died.” He says it without pomp or circumstance. The barely healed memory cuts through Blue again. So many people to mourn. Such little tolerance.

“When she died, I thought we were done,” he says. “And then I knew that I had to ask for his life. Someone had to because there was no way in hell he’d save himself. He was too…too…self pitying. He’d rather have died.”

It seems too cruel to say that about someone who was now, indeed, dead. Instead, Blue snorts. Ronan’s gaze cuts sharply to hers.

“I think it’s ironic that _you_ talk of self pity.”

“There’s a difference between self pity and self hate. Pity means you’re sorry for your condition and wish it were better. It’s envy for what you don’t have. It's hope for another day. Self hate is when you’ve peaked and you know you still can’t do better.”

She doesn’t grace this with a reply. She knows whatever she has to say will never be enough for him.

* * *

There is so much Ronan leaves unsaid. He doesn’t explain his vision, the vivid detail of the crisp black suit and the tie suffocating him. He doesn’t explain what it feels like mourning somebody and wondering whom you were crying for. He doesn’t explain that no, no he didn’t know it was Gansey at all who would die but it was just a hunch. He doesn’t say that regardless of what knowledge he’d had, his favor would always be Adam for the same reason that hers would always be Gansey. He doesn’t say that if he didn’t fight for Adam, then nobody would.

He doesn’t say how the real irony lies in the fact that self hate was a hobby he picked up long before his father died, because nobody – not even the Greywaren – would ever make peace with the fabrics of the worlds he straddled.

He doesn’t say that he wishes Gansey were dead. He wishes, that if someone _had_ to die, it should be Gansey. Saying that would mean admitting that the only world Ronan can live in is one where Gansey doesn’t live. Then, Ronan doesn’t have to feel guilty about breaking his promise and ending his own miserable existence.

Now? Now Adam is dead, and Ronan is realizing that perhaps he could never really off himself because doing so would also kill his brother.  Ronan is also realizing that all this is bullshit because he never, ever thinks Gansey should die.

Grief makes a liar out of even the truest ones.

Most of all Ronan doesn’t say Adam’s name because saying it would mean that the sweetest word to ever leave his lips is now a past tense.

He doesn’t want to close his eyes because he knows he’ll see the same thing over and over again. But even with his eyes open, it’s the same vision.

 

_Ronan doesn’t bother turning off the car, or pulling out the keys, or even putting the car in neutral. He hastily manages to yank the hand brake up, the door falling open. In the distance, he can hear the echo of ambulances and police cars falling back. But they were suckers and he was a street racer. He always wins._

_His legs are carrying him around the destruction that is the Hondayota, and his heart is pounding in his chest so hard that he thinks there’s another tattoo being printed in there. He throws open the driver’s side door and it’s the frame under his hands that stops his knees from buckling._

_“Adam,” he whispers, and it sounds strangled. The boy in question is barely conscious, his face so completely covered in blood that it looks like Adam never had any other skin other than this crimson one. Shards of glass have drizzled down on him, and splatters from the heavy rain are covering the messy dashboard. His already ripped Aglionby sweater is completely torn up. Branches from the tree fly through the car, making a home of their own. It’s a miracle none of them have riddled Adam’s body like a pincushion._

_Ronan is quick to unbuckle his seatbelt, and Adam falls right out as if that was the only thing holding him up. Ronan’s arms are quick to catch him, pulling him close. His palms run all over his chest, looking for a wound to plug but there is none. He can feel uneven skin though, and it makes him realize that there is nothing to plug because everything on the inside has been shaken up. Later, he will learn that it was almost instant internal damage – broken ribs, splinters of which punctured his vital chest organs. Spleen damage, simply from the speed at which he rammed into the tree. A too rainy night to be driving so angry._

_“Adam?” he whispers again, a bit louder this time. When there’s no response, he can’t help but shake him a little. Adam cries out in pain, eyes rolling a bit before they finally settle on Ronan._

_“Gansey,” he gasps. Blood drops splatter his lips._

_“What?” Ronan snaps. “No. Hey, it’s me. You know who I am.”_

_“You have to – you have to – “ Adam gasps. “You have to tell Gansey. Tell him I didn’t mean – tell him. You have to tell him.”_

_“Tell him yourself.” Ronan says it unkindly, as if he’d never bestow this favor for someone else. He refuses to be a messenger carrying a dead man’s words._

_“Ronan – “ Adam groans, and blinks rapidly. “Ronan, I can’t – you –“_

_“Oh for fuck’s sake. What is taking so long?” Ronan snarls, looking up for any sign of an ambulance or a cop._

_“Ronan.” He feels a slight tug on his shirt and he looks down at Adam’s bloodied fingers pulling on his button._

_“Adam. Come on, man, don’t do this to me. Look alive.”_

_“I know.”_

_“What?” Ronan asks, not understanding the tone of the words._

_“I_ know. _”_

_The way he says it is the same way when he said he knew about the rent. Except there’s only one other secret Ronan’s been keeping and it kills him a little that this is when he chooses to be ousted._

_"Don’t you dare,” he seethes. “Don’t you dare tell me that now. Not like this. Don’t you fucking do that, Adam Parrish.”_

_“I should’ve – we could’ve – we were almost – I – next time. Next time, I promise. Don’t forget to tell Gansey.”_

_I should have. We could have. We were almost. Next time. Each possibility is like a punch to Ronan’s gut, one that even a Lynch brother can’t take standing. He wheezes, shaking his head. His fingers grasp Adam’s chin and make him meet his eye._

_“You don’t get to leave me like this.”_

_“Too late for – “_

_Adam breathes his last before he finishes that taunt. His words end in a series of gasps, his body seizing and jerking a few times. His eyes glaze over until their blue loses all three dimensions. There is no dramatic goodbye or last words. His life is simply a pen that has run out of ink. Ronan doubles over his body, holding him close, his hands trembling. He’s holding a body. He’s holding a_ dead _body. He’s holding Adam’s body. There is no Adam. Just a body. There is no Adam anywhere in the world._

_“No,” Ronan gasps. “No. No. No.”_

_He’s shaking the body he’s holding, or he’s hugging it, or he’s doing both, but he can’t let go. He mumbles Adam’s name, then shouts it, and then whispers it again. He can feel hands dragging them apart but he latches on tight._

_“NO!” he shouts, the EMTs ripping Adam away from him, the cops trying to hold him back while they load the body on a stretcher and rush it to the ambulance._

_“No,” he whispers again._

_We could have. We were almost. Next time._

_There would be no next time._

 

“I don’t understand.”

Blue’s words snap him out of his auto-replay, his head tilting to look at her.

“I should have known. We would’ve…we should have seen his spirit. His name…his name should have been on the list.”

Ronan doesn’t voice what he’s been thinking the whole time. He doesn’t say how it’s easy to confuse Adam and Gansey from far, far, far away when you can’t see what makes them them. He doesn’t say how close he held Adam’s body to his own, clutching this Aglionby boy while the rain poured down on him and whispered secrets he couldn’t understand. He doesn’t even say how all Adam kept saying in his last moments was _Gansey, Gansey, Gansey,_ and that’s all there is.

But mostly, he can’t tell her any of this because what if he’s completely, completely _wrong,_ and Gansey is still going to die? A part of him, secretly, revels in this knowledge being hidden from her because he thinks she should share this same pain that’s coursing through him right now.

Blue Sargent may be a mirror, but Ronan Lynch was much better at reflecting pain on everyone else.

“I thought you didn’t deal with specifics,” he says, instead. Blue shrugs. She’s picking at the dead grass surrounding her feet and he looks away.

He wonders, now, if he’ll ever be able to dream of Adam again. His dreams lie in Cabeswater, and Cabeswater’s Adam is the real one, and the real Adam is gone, gone, gone. Perhaps, he’ll never dream of him again. Perhaps, he’ll only dream of him.

The realization that this is the rest of their lives haunts him again. Two mourners, destined to live just out of reach of what they want. It’s kind of a good thing they get to stick together. They’re the only ones who know what it’s like to love both Adam and Gansey. They’re the only ones who’ll feel both those losses wholly. Adam and Gansey deserve to be missed wholly, and together. Their lives meant little until either one stepped into the other’s.

The crushing weight of this realization creeps into his chest, and he stands up abruptly. His face is skewed into a tornado, and his muscles are taut from trying to stop the inevitable from happening. His fist hits the tree before he registers that he’s even hitting anything. All he sees is his aim, and the venomous emotion that is fuelling his hits. The freshly clotted wounds – courtesy of the fight he picked with the hospital terrace – quickly split open again, teasing red veins on the surface of his skin. He thinks he’s seen enough blood to last a lifetime.

Blue doesn’t stop him, but she doesn’t idly ignore him either. She stands up and watches him until he can’t hit anymore and his knees give out under him.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he chants, his blows losing speed and strength. His shaking hands come up to his face, running over his scalp and digging into the short hairs. A tear trickles down his screwed up face. His nose inhales a shuddering breath.

“Fuck, Adam,” he whispers, his chest exploding in pain. “Fuck you.”

 _Fuck_ Adam for dying. Fuck him because now two people are doomed and Glendower can save only one. Fuck Adam for having so much pride, it killed him.

Fuck Adam for leaving him.

“Come on,” Blue says, softly. He can feel the heat of her stare, feel the tightness in her muscles as she hovers a hand over his shoulder without touching him. The painful static between them is obvious – they’re unhinged circuits, dangling live wires waiting to blow up into pieces.

“Come on,” she repeats, her voice shaking. “Let’s get out of here.”

Yes, let’s. Magic would do little for them anymore. The world could do very little for them anymore.

He picks himself up and stumbles, following her out of the mystical forest, wishing he could do the same with the pieces of his insides he just left behind.

**Author's Note:**

> This one was hard to write for many reasons, the most prominent of which are that I've read the series only once and it's still taking me time to comfortably narrate these characters' voices, and the least prominent of which are that I'm a lazy procrastinator who can imagine elaborate scenarios but has a harder time writing them down. 
> 
> Either way, I hope you guys like this and my genuine apologies if I got their characterizations wrong, or messed up somewhere along the lines.
> 
> I also feel the need to claim that I don't own any of these characters even a little bit. And that this isn't beta read so any grammatical errors are completely on me. 
> 
> \- Brooke xx


End file.
